Conventional video cameras generate a video signal by employing an image pickup device (typically a chargecoupled device, or "CCD") to store each of a plurality of images sequentially, and a means for converting the sequence of stored images into a video signal. When aiming the camera lens at an image of interest, undesired camera movement will result in undesired motion of the image relative to the image pickup device and hence, relative to each field of the video signal.
A means for correcting the video signal to compensate for undesired camera motion in a single direction has been described in Japanese Patent Application 57-83977 by Sony Corporation, published May 26, 1982. In Patent Application 57-83977, the image of interest occupies only a portion of the image pickup device, so that movement of the camera in one dimension will cause the image to translate in one direction relative to the edges (or "borders") of the pickup device. An acceleration detector is mounted in the video camera, and circuitry is provided for correcting for undesired movement of the image (in a single direction only) relative to the image pickup device, in order to produce a corrected video signal exhibiting reduced image motion in such single direction.
However, until the present invention it has not been known how efficiently to correct video signals for undesired camera rotational and translational motion in two or three dimensions.